Page:The Melanesians Studies in their Anthropology and Folklore.djvu/248

226 his feet, calling him by his name. This is said to be done by letting an open bamboo some foot or two into the ground in some place not far from the person to be addressed, where the operation will be unseen, and then speaking into the end of the bamboo, and directing the voice in the way the sound is meant to travel. Again, a family party working in their garden will see smoke and sparks ascending in the direction of their village; they hear the hissing of the flames and the popping of the bamboo rafters; they are sure that it is their own house burning, and run to save what they can. When they reach the village all is quiet, the houses are all standing with fastened doors, as in the hours of work. The trick has been played by a party who somewhere in a line with the house have made a fire, and exploding green reeds which fill with steam when heated in the fire, and beating with the tips of dry cocoa-nut fronds upon the ground, have imitated with wonderful exactness the noises of a house on fire.

It will hardly be inappropriate here to introduce the Melanesian superstition about sneezing, to which some reference has been already made. In Florida when a man sneezes they think that some one is speaking of him, is angry with him, perhaps cursing him by calling on his own tindalo to eat him; the man who sneezes calls upon his tlndalo to damage the man who is cursing him. In the same way at Saa if a man sneezes when he wakes, he cries, 'Who calls me? If for good, well; if for evil, may So-and-So (naming a lio’a) defend me.' In the Banks' Islands also some one is supposed to be calling the name of a man when he sneezes, either for good or evil. In Motlav if a child sneezes, the mother will cry, 'Let him come back into the world! let him remain.' In Mota they cry, 'Live, roll back to us!' The notion is that a ghost is drawing the child's soul away. It has been said that at Mota a man enquires when he sneezes by a certain divination who is cursing him; he will also stamp with his foot and cry, 'Stamp down the mischief from me! Let it be quiet! Let them say their words in vain;